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Hidden Design Festival
Yards features Bulimba garden in inaugural LDI Hidden Garden Festival.
Yards features Bulimba garden in inaugural LDI Hidden Garden Festival.
Hidden all around Australia are stunning gardens, designed, constructed and maintained by landscape professionals – gardens which are rarely seen, other than by their owners and friends as part of the Landscape Design Institute's Hidden Design Festival. Yards, Bulimba garden was one of six designer fardens chosen to be showcased in the inaugural Festival.
Located nearby on the Brisbane River is the second Hidden garden in Bulimba, designed and constructed, by Ben French of Yards Landscaping. Another smaller site, the gardens surround the stunning house and truly amazing swimming pool.
The walls of the house slide back to really appreciate the home’s location. Ben’s work is focused in the rear garden and includes the lawn, sunken firepit and plantings located adjacent to some existing Dragon Trees (Dracaena draco).
" A garden must connect people and it must connect to its environment" - Ben French MAIH
"Gardens have a calming effect on people", says the landscape designer and owner if Yards, a company that turns ordinary gardens paces into urban oases. Ben is known for his work with "difficult access" areas, such as balconies which he coverts into lush gardens or rooftops that become green havens. "We use to work with a lot of acreage property and bigger yards, but we've seen a huge shift to these smaller blocks" he says. "There's always a way for people to add greenery to a small space, even if it something really small like a little green wall that they can install or a really nice pot and hardy plant thats going t grow in that situation. I love the challenges of small spaces. They're great". All of the gardens Ben designs offer an escape of some sort "to relax or just to reflect on the day", he says.
"My design philosphy would be to evoke the senses, because a garden must connect people and it must connect to its environment."
The garden the designed for a riverside property in Bulimba, which was on show to the public as part of the recent Hidden Garden Festival, does just that, providing a quiet space for the clients to sit by the river, with the access to their jetty, and a central water feature that can admired from inside the osuse or in the garden. He says aside from consulting an expert, home gardeners should think first and foremost about thier budget.
